How to Use expedient in a Sentence

expedient

1 of 2 adjective
  • Do the right thing, not the expedient thing.
  • They found it expedient to negotiate with the terrorists.
  • Do the right thing instead of bowing to what is most expedient.
    — Tribune Content Agency, oregonlive, 21 Aug. 2020
  • What is the most aligned, not just expedient, response?
    — Olivia Dufour, Forbes.com, 12 Aug. 2025
  • Going external may seem like the most expedient way to close a skills gap.
    — Expert Panel®, Forbes.com, 27 Jan. 2026
  • But that's no excuse to take the easy or expedient way out with misdemeanor pleas.
    — Elie Honig, CNN, 25 Aug. 2021
  • For me, going to the White House would feel more expedient than right.
    — Bill Shaikin, Los Angeles Times, 1 Feb. 2026
  • This is the logical, expedient, correct thing to do.
    — Barbara Sprunt, NPR, 24 Mar. 2026
  • But it’s not lost on the club that the most expedient path to improvement in 2021 is to score more goals.
    — Alex Vejar, The Salt Lake Tribune, 16 Nov. 2020
  • Allowing someone else to claim credit for your work, Adams knew, could be the most expedient way to get the work done.
    — Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 24 Oct. 2022
  • But like many expedient acts, Newsom’s promise proved less salutary with time and more like a set of handcuffs.
    — Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times, 11 Sep. 2023
  • All of this is being offered to the public in a way that is found to be expedient for the ruling circles of a certain country.
    — NBC News, 14 June 2021
  • For those who missed out on the opportunity in the past or for the youngsters who want to learn a safe and expedient way, there is a solution.
    — Emmett Hall, sun-sentinel.com, 30 Sep. 2021
  • Many of these professionals may be working with booking agents, so social media wouldn’t be the most expedient way to get to them.
    — Eric Thomas, Sun Sentinel, 13 May 2026
  • There’s no such thing as an expedient literary translation.
    — Literary Hub, 29 Apr. 2026
  • Place customer insights above what’s convenient and expedient for your business.
    — Expert Panel®, Forbes, 15 Apr. 2021
  • Their partnership was vital to Tatum’s expedient process.
    — Jared Weiss, New York Times, 7 Mar. 2026
  • Of course, the laborious chore of going from self-driving car to self-driving car would seem not very expedient if the fiend is aiming to perform a mass takeover.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 19 Oct. 2021
  • Of course, science is the first thing tossed out the window nowadays, except when its reference is politically expedient.
    — Dennis Anderson, Star Tribune, 10 July 2021
  • So for a small state operating under severe constraints, mowing the lawn offers an expedient way of coping with an intractable problem.
    — Andrew Bacevich, Twin Cities, 13 Dec. 2019
  • Tolbert suggested, and Bibb concurred, that the most expedient course would be for the Wings to take over the project’s development.
    — Brad Townsend, Dallas Morning News, 15 Jan. 2026
  • Those activists argue that adding more police is a politically expedient move that doesn’t help reduce violence.
    — Washington Post, 4 Apr. 2022
  • Fighting over market share with Volkswagen and Ford isn’t an expedient way to colonize Mars.
    — Patrick George, The Atlantic, 5 Sep. 2025
  • To expedite their relentless foraging, the ants rapidly build bridges over gaps in their path or across trees, using their own bodies as building blocks to create a smooth and expedient path for their kin.
    — Quanta Magazine, 9 Apr. 2014
  • However, those that compromise core values for expedient gains may achieve short-term wins, but ultimately lose their distinctiveness.
    — Skye Blanks, Forbes.com, 20 Jan. 2026
  • The letter says the process will be conducted in a manner that is both expedient and respectful of all involved while maintaining the standards of the Academy.
    — Chloe Melas, CNN, 30 Mar. 2022
  • These judges are strong constitutionalists who will rule for what is right before the law, not what is culturally and politically expedient.
    — Jeanne Mancini, National Review, 10 July 2021
  • So this isn’t at all the cheap or expedient way to go, and for that the Yorks have to be credited after going cheap or expedient in so many previous important moments.
    — Tim Kawakami, The Mercury News, 1 Jan. 2017
  • Moore repeatedly exposed himself to intense hostile fire to insure the proper and expedient deployment of friendly troops.
    — The Washington Post, The Denver Post, 14 Feb. 2017
  • And waiting for a public guardian to be appointed can take months, leaving a professional guardian as the most expedient way to move patients from the hospital to a nursing home or other setting.
    — Monivette Cordeiro, orlandosentinel.com, 26 July 2019

expedient

2 of 2 noun
  • We can solve this problem by the simple expedient of taking out another loan.
  • The government chose short-term expedients instead of a real economic policy.
  • But a measure made expedient by war is no precedent for times of peace.
    — Chris Stirewalt, Fox News, 21 June 2018
  • The new expedient is going to be simply dumping many of them on the streets.
    — The Editors, National Review, 11 May 2023
  • The new episode feels more expedient and deadline-pressured than what precedes it.
    — Michael Phillips, chicagotribune.com, 28 Oct. 2020
  • Hence the rivets; the most expedient method of joining body panels.
    — Robert Ross, Robb Report, 1 Nov. 2021
  • In the face of such a large deficit, imposing a hefty tax increase on the wealthy may seem like an expedient option.
    — Teresa Keegan, The Denver Post, 11 Feb. 2017
  • All have been happy to use the EU as a punchbag when expedient.
    — The Economist, 26 Oct. 2017
  • Such expedients do not appear to have burdened many consciences.
    — Daniel Immerwahr, The New Yorker, 13 Nov. 2023
  • To be expedient, the government offered loans on a first-come, first-serve basis.
    — Alicia Wallace, CNN, 19 Apr. 2020
  • Carter urged Mueller to be transparent but also expedient in his work.
    — Leada Gore, AL.com, 26 Mar. 2018
  • But for Italy, the ships seemed to offer an expedient way to quell domestic concerns.
    — Ian Urbina, The Atlantic, 6 May 2021
  • The gist is that a longer set of instructions or code might ultimately be faster or more expedient than a shorter set.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 7 July 2022
  • Winning Warnock's seat would make that process easier and more expedient.
    — Arkansas Online, 25 Nov. 2022
  • And the simple expedient of wearing long sleeves and pants limits the parts of the body that are exposed to any biting insect.
    — Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 28 May 2026
  • The other is the novel’s ending, which is gruesome and, to a degree, expedient.
    — Dwight Garner, New York Times, 23 Aug. 2021
  • The couple did the expedient thing and purchased flood insurance.
    — David Taylor, Houston Chronicle, 12 Sep. 2020
  • When expedient, whole tribes were welcomed into the empire and given some sort of legal status.
    — Cullen Murphy, The Atlantic, 9 June 2020
  • Quite obviously, the expedient action on both governors’ parts would have been to wave these bills through.
    — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 24 Mar. 2022
  • Global warming cannot be slowed by just one expedient, and climate change cannot actually be stopped in the short or medium term.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 9 Apr. 2012
  • This was expedient, but also seemed to correspond to a genuine sense that the theatrics had started to overwhelm his work.
    — Lauren Collins, The New Yorker, 20 Mar. 2023
  • However, staff and council members said the city yard could be more expedient and lower-cost than other options.
    — Hillary Davis, Daily Pilot, 25 Sep. 2019
  • Although often a short-term expedient, most women who start to work part-time continue for longer than intended.
    — The Economist, 5 Sep. 2019
  • To be the leader means taking responsibility and doing the right thing—not the easy or the expedient thing.
    — Harry Kraemer, Fortune, 25 Sep. 2017
  • Rather than the simple small-car expedient of MacPherson struts in front, the Chevette has a pair of control arms on each side.
    — Patrick Bedard, Car and Driver, 17 Aug. 2020
  • This was a plea, not a proviso, because, so far, supplication is the only expedient available to them.
    — Sue Halpern, The New Yorker, 30 Sep. 2021
  • Amputation might have been the safest expedient, but the mine would have had to pay permanent disability.
    — Jonathan Franzen, New Yorker, 1 June 2026
  • Both have shown a comfort with saying what is expedient in the moment, while making choices that promote their own idealized images of their brand.
    — Lauren Stiller Rikleen, Fortune, 1 Sep. 2017
  • Companies that want to step up and do the most expedient thing to help small businesses today can make their pledge public by joining the #paytoday club here.
    — Jeanne Sahadi, CNN, 16 Apr. 2020
  • Most of them, of course, subscribed to the newsletter in order to prepare for the perfectly legal expedient of killing themselves.
    — Anne Fadiman, Harper's Magazine, 20 July 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'expedient.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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